automatically manage many routine programming tasks. For example, some of the tasks the protos support include filing, finding, routing, scrolling, displaying an overview, and soup management.

The disadvantage of NewtApp is that it is structured to support a particular kind of application--one that allows the creation, editing, and display of soup data. And particularly, it supports applications structured so that there is one data element (card, note, and so on) per soup entry. If your application doesn't lend itself to that structure or doesn't need much of the support that NewtApp provides, then it would be better to use a different approach to application design.

For details on using the NewtApp framework to construct an application, see Chapter 4, "NewtApp Applications."

Digital Books

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If you want to develop an application that displays a large amount of text, handles multiple pages, or needs to precisely layout text, you may want to consider making a digital book instead of a traditional application. In fact, if you are dealing with a really large amount of text, like more than a few dozen screens full, then you could make your job much easier by using the digital book development tools.

Digital books are designed to display and manipulate large amounts of text and graphics. Digital books can include all the functionality of an application--they can include views, protos, and methods that are executed as a result of user actions. In fact, you can do almost everything in a digital book that you can do in a more traditional application, except a traditional application doesn't include the text layout abilities.

The advantage of using a digital book structure is that you gain the automatic text layout and display abilities of Book Reader, the built-in digital book reading appli-cation. Additionally, the book-making tools are easy to use and allow you to quickly turn large amounts of text and graphics into Newton books with minimal effort.

The disadvantage of using a digital book is that it is designed to support a particular kind of application--one that is like a book. If your application doesn't lend itself to that structure or doesn't need much of the text-handling support that Book Reader provides, then it would be better to use a different approach to application design.

For information on creating digital books using the Book Maker command language and/or incorporating NewtonScript code and objects into digital books, see Newton Book Maker User's Guide. For information on creating simpler digital books see Newton Press User's Guide.